Left Behind
by d60kit
Summary: The war has ended and Andromeda Tonks is struggling to carry on. Perhaps there is someone who understands. DH spoilers.


Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter...

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Andromeda is wondering why a good funeral has to be followed by a nice social gathering where everyone makes polite conversation and tries to forget why they are there. She has just buried her only child and now she is supposed to be serving tea and scones to dozens of people, most of whom she has never even met. Right now she is wishing they would all just leave but she knows that they will soon and then it will be worse then because then life will go on, dragging her along with it.

Teddy's screams had given her a good excuse to leave, to close the back door on the guests and carry the crying baby down to the bottom of the garden where they can be alone. For the last week he has barely stopped crying, perhaps sensing her distress or perhaps knowing what he has lost but today he has waited quietly in Molly Weasley's arms while they buried his parents. Now his renewed cries are a chance to escape from her house which is so full she was finding it even more difficult to breathe.

The number of people had surprised her. Through the haze that seemed to be surrounding her, she had noted not just the surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix and the Hogwarts teachers, but many of Nymphadora's colleagues and Remus' students. An elderly house elf, looking strangely like her aunt's elf from long ago, had arrived with Harry and bowed to her before moving to a corner at the back where Narcissa Malfoy seemed to be trying to stay out of sight. Andromeda wondered if she should have been angry that her younger sister had dared to attend but she had been too exhausted to react and simply pretended not to notice. It did not really matter.

She keeps telling herself that Teddy is the only thing that matters right now. Everyone fusses over him when they run out of things to say to her. They say he must be such a comfort to her and point out the ways he resembles his mother or his father, and she does not have the heath to tell them that his appearance changes completely several times a day. It is not that she does not love her grandson or that she is not grateful that his parents left him to her care; she just cannot help wondering, guilty and disloyal though it makes her feel, if he is enough. He is hope for the future but he cannot mend the past and she wonders if she is too broken to be near a child, let alone one that fate has already been so cruel to. She has to force herself though every moment, remind herself to breathe. Just getting out of bed and warming up a bottle seems to require strength she does not have. She assumes things will get easier with time but what if she is wrong? Or what if she manages to carry on now but one day she wakes up and realises she has only been pretending all along, and she does not actually want to live at all? He is all she has now and she cannot help but wonder if he will be enough.

'_I didn't know them.'_

The voice is audibly even over Teddy's cries and it startles Andromeda. She had thought she was alone outside and this seems a strange thing to say when you have just sat through a double funeral service. Andromeda turns to see an elderly woman striding round the pond towards her. Like everyone else the woman is dressed in black robes but she has topped her outfit with a pointed hat adorned with what appears to be a large vulture. She seems familiar and important somehow but Andromeda is too tired to make the pieces fit. The woman reaches out for the screaming Teddy and a confused Andromeda lets her take him.

'_My grandson Neville fought with them both though and he always spoke highly of Professor Lupin. And of course my son knew Remus from the original Order of the Phoenix.'_

The woman's voice is steady and conversational but she does not seem to expect a reply. Andromeda recognises her now. She has seen Mrs Longbottom at various events over the years but always stayed out of the woman's sight. For the first few weeks after her elder sister went to Azkaban, Andromeda had toyed with the idea of visiting this woman. She can remembered sitting up one night deliberating while she watched her daughter sleeping, and eventually deciding against it. She had no idea what she would say and because she would probably be hexed on sight. Not only did she look like Bellatrix, she shared the same blood as her and perhaps that made her just a little evil herself. Because the sister she had once known had truly been replaced by something evil. Andromeda knew it then and she most definitely knows it now.

'_I met your daughter though I didn't know who she was. We walked up to the castle together that night.'_

Those words snap Andromeda out of her thoughts. It is so horribly ironic that her daughter walked to her death alongside this woman. Part of her wants to beg for any scrap of detail on Nymphadora's last hours, but she knows it will not help her.

'_An auror. Part of the Order. She must have been an incredible young woman. I'm sure her son will grow into a fine young man.'_

She passes Teddy back to Andromeda, who had not even noticed that he had stopped crying.

'_Take care of him, dear. And of course you'll be proud of his parents but be proud of him for who is too. It will be enough, dear, even if it doesn't always seem that way…'_

Andromeda struggles to take in this advice, shocked into silence while Teddy gurgles contentedly into her shoulder. The older woman turns to leave and without thinking Andromeda moves forward to stop her.

'_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what my… for what she… for what Bellatrix did. To your son.'_

The words come rushing before Andromeda can stop them. She has waited so many years to say them but once they are out in the air they seem awkward and wrong somehow. Mrs Longbottom looks stern but there is no sign of the anger Andromeda had feared.

'_As I am sorry for what she did to your daughter. No more though. You shouldn't apologise for her.'_

The older woman watches her kindly for a moment before she turns away, then pauses and looks back over her shoulder.

'_And if you ever need a babysitter I'm sure my grandson would be happy to help…'_

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End file.
